The role of inspiration in entrepreneurship: Theory and the future research agenda

Wartiovaara, Markus

Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland.

Lahti, Tom

Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland.

Wincent, Joakim

Luleå University of Technology, Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences, Business Administration and Industrial Engineering. Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland; University of St Gallen, Switzerland.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8770-8874

Abstract [en]

The role of entrepreneurial inspiration has largely been overlooked in the entrepreneurship literature. Recent findings in the psychology literature indicate that inspiration plays a key role in creative processes and may have significant transformative effects on cognition, affect, and behavior. The objective of this study is to define the construct, review the literature, and propose a theory for understanding the role of inspiration in entrepreneurship. We show that our theory can answer unresolved questions in entrepreneurship.